Wakey, wakey Vale!

The season started nine days ago, but this seems to be news to some players at Vale Park.

The inertia that plagued us so many times last season, particularly away from home, was in full evidence again in the first half at Huish Park. Why? Why travel all the way down to Yeovil and produce such a pitiful effort? It would have been far kinder to the fans to have simply conceded the game late Friday/early Saturday thus saving travelling Valiant fans the cost of getting down to Somerset.

The team should have had a point to prove on Saturday. Defeat to Wrexham in The Carling Cup coupled with the guileless and sometimes witless attempts to break down Bristol Rovers the weekend before SHOULD have been all the motivation needed to go out and play as though their lives depended on it.

Who should we point fingers at? Foyle or the players? According to Skipper George Pilkington its the players.

Pilks told The Sentinel ‘All the coaching staff are bitterly disappointed, and rightly so. They’ve put everything in place for us to go out and perform, but the players aren’t doing it at the moment.’

Will this mean wholesale changes for Saturdays game at home to Hartlepool Utd? Well no, we simply don’t have the personnel to suddenly drop four or five first team players. This may be part of the problem. We don’t have serious competition for places in every position, some players may be living in a ‘comfort zone’.

Foyle needs to deal with this. All his players need to know that he is prepared to leave them out of the starting line up if he doesn’t get the effort required. Play some youngsters, and make it public about why he’s made changes.

The problem with Foyle is that he’s got his head firmly buried in the sand at the moment. He’s talking about players lacking some confidence, new players needing time to settle in, we can turn it around on Saturday, blah, blah, blah.

Speaking to The Official Vale Website the Tin Man offered up this gem:

‘We have probably created more chances in the first three games than we did in the first five games last season.’

What is he on? we scored ten goals in that run of five consecutive wins, we haven’t have ten shots at goal so far this season!

Lets hope that there’s some sense talked on the training ground this week. We need to see some action at Vale Park this Saturday.




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